Warrior Poet Prose

Back in 1999, a treesitter named Frodo who was living 200 feet off the ancient forest floor to prevent logging gave an interview on Coast to Coast Late Night with Art Bell.

The interview was so popular among listeners the PO Box for the tree village was flooded with mail. One of the most prolific fans of our work was a California Poet named Steve Toth (1950-2024).

Steve was a prolific author and poet. At first it was just stacks of poems, one per page, in regularly mailed letters. But as the internet took hold Steve participated in online discussion groups where he began posting his poetry almost everyday.

Steve became a poet who was published often in the Earth First! Journal, as well as its companion website that you’re reading right now:

Mother Nature, O Coyote, Mouthpiece, Out of Wack Coyote, Nature’s Course, Red Cloud Thunder, Cassandra and Coyote.

At The time of Steve’s passing when word spread our editor-in-chief, Dennis Frtizinger, remembered him:

“Steve was very generous with his submissions to Earth First! I was always glad to see what he was offering this time.

I never met Steve in person but got to know him through his poems and contributions to the warrior poets list. He didn’t just write ecopoems, but those were the ones I homed in on to use in the Earth First! Journal.

At one point Steve told me it was time to have my own book, and he said his sister Joye had a lot of time on her hands right then and could make it happen. Joye would do layout art and design and I would contribute poems, 60 pages worth. I said great!

And that’s how my only book from an independent publisher came about. The title, Earth National Park, was the same as one of the poems in the book, and also gives you the flavor of what’s inside.”

When his time came, Steve’s wife Sheila sent our editor a brief message:

I DON'T KNOW WHERE
by Steve Toth

My reality is an exploding dandelion 
     being blown away by children
laughing so hard they can hardly stand

On the night I was born
     my mother took one look
     at me & named me
after the martyr Stephen
     who got stoned
     in the Bible
O mother you've brought something 
     into this world to die
     I've been naked since I got here

Some people think that plants are dumb
     because they don't talk
or pushovers because they don't fight back
But those who have 
     watched plants growing long enough
have seen their battles to the death
     over sunlight & root space
     unfolding in slow motion
When I was young my teammates told me
     "You can either play your best
or you can play unhurt"
     Nowhere is home to me
     & I can't go there

When a porpoise in an aquarium 
     performs a desired behavior
its trainer blows a whistle & tosses it a fish
     so it will associate a blown whistle
     with receiving a reward
I've given up knowing what I'm doing
When I look into the mirror
     that you've made your face up with
I see mostly the things
     I refuse to see in myself
Come look deeply into these bottomless eyes
     I don't know where 
     but you take me there

From: https://peace.fandom.com/wiki/Steve_Toth